Farewell Pharaoh Atem

Yami Yugi: "Congratulations! Well done. (...) Yugi, a champion doesn't belong on his knees. You achieved a great victory for us both."

Yugi Muto: "I was focusing so hard on playing the game that I forgot what winning this Duel would actually mean. By defeating you I've sent you away... for good."

Yami Yugi: "No, you have opened the door for me! Thanks to you my spirit can finally be at rest once again: I'll be back where I belong. Fate brought the two of us together for a reason, and we fulfilled our destiny. We've protected mankind from the return of the Shadow Games and we've both grown tremendously along the way."

Ishizu Ishtar: "Now that the battle ritual is complete, the Eye of Wdjat that guards the door to the Spirit World has awakened, and the Spirit of the Great Pharaoh which was trapped within the Millennium Puzzle for 5,000 years is now free. (...) The time has arrived: tell the Eye of Wdjat your name."

Téa Gardner: "Exactly. Pharaoh, I know walking through that door means your spirit will finally be free and it's all for the best, but it doesn't seem fair. I mean, I feel like we're all just getting to know you. In fact you were just beginning to get to know yourself, and now you're being taken away from us! I know we should be happy for you, but it's really hard to do that when you're losing your best friend and you just don't understand why it has to be that way.'"

Joey Wheeler: "I guess there are some things we're not SUPPOSE to understand. Just look at me: I go through half my life not understanding what's going on. But I know that true friends may be hard to leave, but they're impossible to forget. And even though his stay wasn't as long as we would have liked, we're lucky we knew him at all."

Suddenly the ground and walls start to crumble. The Millennium Stone disintegrates and the Millennium Items fall down a chasm in the ground. As the group runs to safer ground towards the exit, the spirit of Shadi watches them leave as the walls continue to crumble.

A New Adventure?

Ishizu Ishtar: "Now that the Pharaoh has returned to the next world, the Millennium Items have been permanently sealed and our duty as the Pharaoh's tombkeepers is finally complete."

Yugi Muto: (voice-over) "There is something special about a story about a Pharaoh, but everyone has his or her own story. And this is a story that ends in the light. And... my story is just beginning."

Turn 23: Pharaoh Atem
Atem draws "Dark Spear" and subsequently activates it, equipping it to his "Dark Magician" and granting "Dark Magician" the ability to inflict Piercing damage. "Dark Magician" attacks Yugi's "Blockman", but Yugi activates "Soul Shield" to pay half his Life Points (Yugi Muto 800 → 400) and prevent his monster from being destroyed as well as negate all Battle Damage he would take. The attack fails. After that, "Soul Shield" ends the Battle Phase.

Turn 24: Yugi Muto
Yugi draws. He then activates "Gold Sarcophagus" to select 1 card from his Deck and remove it from play face-down. If Atem later activates a card of the same name, Yugi can negate the effect of Atem's card by revealing the card that he removed via "Gold Sarcophagus". Yugi then Activates "Blockman's" effect, Tributing it to Special Summon a number of "Block Tokens" equal to the number of turns that "Blockman" has been face-up on his side of the field. Since it has been two turns, Yugi Special Summons two "Block Tokens" (1000/1500) in Defense Position. Yugi then Tributes his two "Block Tokens" in order to Tribute Summon "Gandora the Dragon of Destruction" (0/0) in Attack Position. He then activates the effect of "Gandora", paying half his Life Points (Yugi Muto 400 → 200) to remove all monsters on the field from play, but Atem activates "Dark Illusion" to protect his "Dark Magician" from the effect of "Gandora" and allow Yugi to draw one card. After the effect of "Gandora" resolves, it is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard. Yugi sets two cards.

Atem then activates "Monster Reborn" to Special Summon "Slifer the Sky Dragon" from his Graveyard (X000/X000) in Attack Position. Since Atem has four cards in his hand, the ATK and DEF of "Slifer" both become 4000 ("Slifer the Sky Dragon": X000 → 4000/X000 → 4000). Atem intends to attack Yugi's "Silent Magician LV5" with "Slifer the Sky Dragon" right now in order to win the Duel. The effect of Yugi's "Gold Sarcophagus" then activates, revealing the face-down card Yugi selected to Atem. The card is revealed to be "Monster Reborn". Because Atem activated the same card Yugi removed via "Gold Sarcophagus", Atem's "Monster Reborn" is negated; "Slifer the Sky Dragon" goes back to the Graveyard.

Trivia

In the Japanese dub, when Yugi Muto reveals Monster Reborn, a passage in which Ishizu Ishtar says it's a "message to the pharaoh, that the dead doesn't belong in this world".

This is the 3rd episode in which a duelist is clearly playing a deck with more than 40 cards (the first being Yami Yugi in episode 138 and the second being Yami Yugi in episode 174) because Yugi Muto still had cards left in his deck after it had been thinned by 40 cards.

Yugi's Deck had been thinned heavily due to the anime effect of two Card of Sanctity for a total of 12 cards (Yugi's Deck 28).

The above, combined with the cards he drew at the start of the Duel (5 cards) and his normal draws at the start of each of his turns (13 turns), would have Decked Yugi out, which would count as an automatic win for Atem. The exact point of decking out would be the second-to-last turn, when he activates Card of Sanctity.

Errors

Tea's belly button is missing until the end of this episode

Featured cards

The following cards appeared in this episode. Cards in italics debuted here.